Identification of tumour-associated T-cell epitopes for vaccine development

Abstract

Ten years ago, the first melanoma patient was successfully treated by vaccination with a short peptide, which was, in fact, the first tumour-specific T-cell epitope ever defined-MAGE.Since then, a number of clinical vaccination studies have underlined the potential of tumour-specific T-cell epitopes. But, how can we identify more epitopes to improve their efficacy as ananticancer treatment. © 2002 Nature Publishing Group.